Fisker Karma Makes An Oscar Appearance

The super-luxe Fisker Karma made an appearance during the Academy Awards gala in ads that aired before Mickey Roarke and Angelina Jolie took their strolls down the red carpet.

The two 60-second advertisements for the range-extended EV ran on Los Angeles television station KTLA during the station’s pre-show run-up. Los Angeles, and the Oscars, are a great match for a car that combines top-shelf luxury with sexy design and environmentally friendly propulsion, company spokesman Russell Datz tells us.

"L.A. is an ideal market because of the people who live there, the money that’s there and because of the concerns the people there have for the environment," Datz says.

In other words, it’s the perfect car for SoCal.

The first Karmas are slated to roll off an assemblyline in Finland before the end of the year, and "just over 1,300" people have ordered one, Datz says. There’s no word yet on whether the ads prompted more orders, but at the least they increased people’s awareness of plug-in hybrids in general and Fisker in particular.

There are no immediate plans to run the ads – which used footage the company had already produced for other marketing efforts – in other markets, but no doubt they’d play well in well-heeled and eco-conscious markets like San Francisco, Miami and New York.

The timing of the ads was a stroke of luck. Datz says one ad aired before Roarke hit the red carpet; the other ran before Jolie wowed the crowd. As for how much it cost to buy time on the pre-awards show, all Datz would say is "Not as much as you might think."